The best way to learn counseling techniques is through a combination of formal education, practical experience, mentorship, and continuous self-development. Mastery requires consistent application of core skills and a commitment to professional growth. Foundational Skills to Mas

1. Oklahoma Department of Corrections
Communication Series:
Counseling Techniques
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2. Counseling Techniques
Course Created/Authored By: Muriel L. Irwin, MLEd.,CTO II, Employee Development Unit
Course Adapted From: Adapted from articles written by author Jan Carrie Stevens
Course Approved by & Date: Etta Thomas, Curriculum Development Specialist 01-Mar-2010
Jerry Mayfield, Training Coordinator II 15-Mar-2012
Bryan D. Bell, Training Specialist II 04-Mar-2013
Dr. Don Kiffin, Training Administrator 17-Mar-2014
Annual Reviewer & Dates: Muriel L. Irwin, MLEd., CTO II 19-Mar-2012
Muriel L. Irwin, MLEd., CTO II 19-Mar-2013
Muriel L. Irwin, MLEd., CTO II 17-Mar-2014
Assigned Course Code Index: DOC 502
ELM Category : In-Service Classroom or Supervisory On-Line
Type of Training Credit : Supervisory
Training Credit: 1 hour
Approved Instructor(s): In-Service Classroom - Certified Instructor or Supervisory On-Line - None
Target Population(s): All Correctional Employees
Delivery/Presentation Method: Classroom or Self-Paced
Evaluation Procedures: Instructor Observation/ None
Data Sources: Written permission from author Jan Carrie Stevens has been granted and
is on file:
www.basic-counseling-skills.com 2

3. Counseling Techniques - Abstract
The Employee Development Unit (EDU) strives to continuously provide
information to educate our employees regarding the development of
interpersonal communication skills. Set in the “Communication Series”
category this curriculum will assist us in meeting our mission of
developing employees by exploring alternatives, building on strengths,
and developing new skills.
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4. Objectives
During this information session, you will be able to:
⮚ Identify the benefits of counseling.
⮚ Determine in what areas counseling can be beneficial.
⮚ Identify some of the qualities of a good counselor.
⮚ Identify the elements of good counseling skills.
⮚ Identity inappropriate responses in counseling.
⮚ Identify the important counseling technique tools.
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5. Introduction
There are times that the challenges in our lives may lead to isolation,
anxiety, depression, and other health problems. Through counseling, you
can explore your alternatives, build on your strengths, and develop new
skills.
Your feelings and concerns about family, friends, health, and work
deserve attention. Counseling gives you the opportunity, in a quiet,
supportive environment, to take the time to stop, think, and plan. With
sensitive and caring feedback, you can gain new awareness and learn to
deal with your challenges in new, productive ways.
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6. Benefits of Counseling
Benefits of Counseling
⮚ Improved communication
⮚ Enhanced relationships
⮚ A happier family
⮚ Peace of mind
⮚ Improved self-esteem
⮚ More satisfaction out of life
⮚ Personal growth
⮚ Improved job performance
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7. Benefits of Counseling
Counseling may be helpful in any of the following areas:
⮚ Adult relationships
⮚ Career change
⮚ Dealing with loss of a loved one
⮚ Anxiety
⮚ Depression
⮚ Adjustment to family changes
⮚ Parent-child relationships
⮚ Sibling relationships
⮚ Divorce
⮚ Cooperative parenting between divorced parents
⮚ Abusive relationships
⮚ Learning Disabilities or Attention Deficit Disorder
⮚ Trauma
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8. Essential Counseling Techniques
Some Qualities of a Good Counselor
⮚ Empathy (the ability to understand the view of
⮚ another person)
⮚ Respectful
⮚ Warm
⮚ Confidential/discreet
⮚ Honest
⮚ Attentive/listening
⮚ Unbiased
⮚ Understandable/clear
⮚ Unhurried
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9. Elements of Counseling Skills
Effective Questioning
Use questions to elicit facts or feelings about the client’s health.
⮚ Use closed-ended questions (yes/no) to quickly gather factual,
non-sensitive information (e.g., name, age).
⮚ Open-ended questions (e.g., “What do you know about the
working with female offenders?” or “Why do you think a career in
corrections is for you?”) are critical for eliciting feelings and
detailed information.
⮚ Use probing questions (e.g., “Can you tell me more about ____?”)
to elicit more in-depth information.
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10. Elements of Counseling Skills
Active Listening
In order to get the information you need to help a client, you must
listen actively. This technique involves communicating, without
words, your interest in the needs the client expresses. You can
open up communication by using silence. You can let the client
know that you are listening by maintaining eye contact, leaning
forward, occasionally saying words like “yes,” and “please
continue”—these are signs of respect and generate a feeling of
well-being in the person who is being heard.
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11. Elements of Counseling Skills
Paraphrasing, Summarizing, and Clarifying
This technique involves repeating, synthesizing, or summarizing in other words what
the client has told you. This helps the provider clarify what the client is saying,
and helps the client to feel that he or she has been heard.
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12. Elements of Counseling Skills
Reflecting and Validating Feelings
This technique involves clarifying the feelings the client expresses in
order to help understand his or her emotions. For example, “It
seems to me that you are worried because you suspect that your
husband had sex with other women, and you are afraid that you
will get AIDS.” It is helpful to clients to let them know that their
reactions to a situation are normal, and that those feelings are
common to other people in similar situations. You can
communicate that the feelings are valid.
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13. Elements of Counseling Skills
Giving Clear Information
Before you give any information, it is helpful to ask questions to determine how much
the client already knows. It is important to provide information using words that
the client can understand. Ask clients to repeat the information you have given
them to verify that they understood.
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14. Elements of Counseling Skills
Arriving at Agreement
This technique involves clarifying and summarizing the decisions that a client has
made during the counseling session.
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15. Inappropriate Responses in Counseling
⮚ Judging: For example, “You wouldn’t have these problems if you
had acted differently!”
⮚ Attacking: For example, “How could you be that irresponsible?
⮚ Denial: For example, “Don’t worry. I’m sure that it’s nothing
important.”
⮚ Pity: For example, “Poor thing! How terrible that happened!”
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16. Counseling Technique Tools
There are several important tools in the counseling kit that will
enable you to effectively communicate and counsel others:
⮚ Asking questions
⮚ Active Listening
⮚ Encouraging Body Language
⮚ Paraphrasing
⮚ Summarizing
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17. Counseling Technique Tools
Asking questions
open and closed - is an important tool in the counseling kit. They
can help a person open up or close them down.
An open ended question (OEQ) is one that is used in order to
gather lots of information – you ask it with the intent of getting a
long answer.
OEQ’s are great for:
Starting the information gathering part of the session
Keeping the client talking
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18. Counseling Technique Tools –
Asking Questions, continued
Open-Ended Questions (OEQs) have no correct answer and require an
explanation of sorts. The who-what-where-why-when-how questions your
English teacher taught you to ask? Little did she know you’d be using them for
asking questions in counseling!
Here are some good ones:
What brought you in here today?
Do you have an idea about why this keeps happening?
How does that make you feel?
You’ll notice that I didn’t use “why?” directly. This is because some people find it
threatening and overwhelming. It implies judgment and it can be asking an
unanswerable question.
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19. Counseling Technique Tools –
Asking Questions, continued
A closed ended question (CEQ) is one used to gather specific information - it
can normally be answered with either a single word or a short phrase. Good
basic counsel skills to know!
Closed Ended Questions (CEQ’s) are those that can easily be answered with
a “yes” or a “no” or brief information.
For example:
What is your name and date of birth?
Did you call the health practitioner to set up a physical?
Where do you work? Occupation?
They sound a little harsh, but are needed for:
1. Getting necessary information
2. To get bring a chatty client back on track or interrupt her/him
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20. Counseling Technique Tools
Active listening
A good listener is not only popular everywhere, but after a while he
knows something. - Wilson Mizner
Is hard but rewarding work. It is so tempting to interrupt, so easy to be
distracted.
Active listening happens when you "listen for meaning". The listener says very
little but conveys empathy, acceptance and genuiness. The listener only speaks
to find out if a statement (or two or twenty) has been correctly heard and
understood.
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21. Counseling Technique Tools –
Active Listening, continued
So…
1. Before the session, make sure your physical needs are taken care of (thirst,
hunger, bathroom, stretching).
2. Look at the speaker. Taking a few notes can keep you on task; mentally put
masking tape across your mouth.
3. Watch your body language! More on this later.
4. Encourage the speaker to continue with short, gentle comments like “uh-
huh”, “really!?”, “tell me more”, etc.
If the person is not normally talkative, you may have to refer to your brief one or
two word notes and ask an open question.
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22. Counseling Technique Tools
Encouraging Body Language
I speak two languages, Body and English! - Mae West
Developing encouraging body language (BL) can take some
practice. We all have our favorite stance, our “default position.” At
the same time, communication is 55% body language, 38% tone
and 7% words. So, remember that your client may not remember
what was said, but they will remember how you made them feel.
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23. Counseling Technique Tools –
Encouraging Body Language, continued
Remember the SOLERF method:
⮚ S - Squarely face person vs. sitting kitty-corner.
⮚ O - use Open posture vs. crossed arms and legs
⮚ L - Lean a little toward the person vs. settling back in your chair
⮚ E - use Eye contact vs. staring off into deep space
⮚ R - Relax, keep it natural vs. sitting like a board
⮚ F – look friendly vs. neutral or scowling
Take a look at how you are sitting right now. Hmm … arms
crossed? Slumped? Bored expression? Looking offside? Not
good.
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24. Counseling Technique Tools
Paraphrasing
When you, the listener, restate succinctly and tentatively what the
speaker said - conveying empathy, acceptance and genuineness.
Since we cannot read our client’s mind and we’ve been given a lot
of extraneous material, it’s good to learn how to rephrase briefly
and acknowledge that this is what we think the client has said.
For example, let’s say the client has gone into a lot of detail about
a traffic jam and the effect on his blood pressure and his resulting
visit with the doctor and the rude nurse and to paraphrase would
be to say in a tentative voice,” So after the traffic jam you felt your
blood pressure was up, and the doctor confirmed this…?”
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25. Counseling Technique Tools –
Paraphrasing, continued
By doing this you are letting your client know that you understand
and, if you don’t, are willing to be corrected. AND you are help in
her or him to “cut to the chase.” What would not be helpful to say
right now is, “So you have an anger management problem!?” It
may be what you are thinking, but you want the client to keep
talking and for the client to come to that conclusion on her or his
own.
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26. Counseling Technique Tools –
Paraphrasing, continued
By the way, this is a good time to take interest in the tone of your
voice. Be watchful of whether it is…
High / low
Loud / soft
Fast / slow
Accommodating / demanding
Light-hearted / gloomy
Moderation in all things including voice.
Remember, the person may not remember what was said, but
they will remember how you made them feel.
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27. Counseling Technique Tools
Focusing on the Main Points
Summary
In counseling, is when you focus on the main points of a presentation or
session in order to highlight them. At the same time you are giving the
“gist”, you are checking to see if you are accurate.
Sum-ups happen at the beginning and at the end of a session.
In a beginning summary, you are recalling what happened at the last
meeting.
In an ending summary, you are attempting to condense what has
happened over 40 minutes into a few minutes worth of material.
In both cases your tone needs to imply that you are open to some
changes in perspective. It’s important the both the client and you are
“reading from the same page.”
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28. Counseling Technique Tools –
Summarizing, continued
So let’s say counselor Joan is seeing client Mary. Mary has been speaking for
20 minutes – she is depressed, failing school, concerned about her boyfriends
dedication to her, and overwhelmed by parents’ demands. Here is what a
succinct, tentative summary would sound like.
1. You came in today because you are feeling depressed.
2. Your school work is not going well.
3. You worry your boyfriend doesn’t love you.
4. You are also unhappy with the amount of stress your parents are putting on
you to get A’s.
Would you say this is accurate?
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29. Closure
In today’s tough economic times, the effects of extreme financial
problems and agency budget crunches can be seen in all walks of
life and can be experienced by all types of people. The effects can
produce stress related health and mental health problems, anxiety
and depression for both the offender population and staff.
Corrections as we have seen is not immune from these effect
either. As such, it has become increasingly important for
correctional staff to learn these valuable counseling techniques
which in turn could make our jobs easier and provide a safer
working environment.
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